


Hearts Will Be Glowing

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: 25 Days of Damerey [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 25 Days of Damerey, Based on prompt from tumblr, Christmas, Draco's Damerey December, F/M, Fluff, Gift Exchange, Gift Giving, Matchmaker Finn, Modern AU, Pining Poe, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16818403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Finn Storm waits until the day of their Christmas party to let Poe Dameron know that he purposefully rigged the Secret Santa Exchange this year so that Poe would get Rey Kenobi.(And maybe that's because Finn's a little tired of his best friend pining after his other best friend, and wants to speed things up a little)





	Hearts Will Be Glowing

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Two!  
> "Character A’s best friend rigs the Secret Santa, because they know Character A has a crush on Character B."

“Merry Christmas!” Rose Tico practically jumps on Poe as she enters the small townhouse he rents with Finn. “How’s my favorite guy?”

“Way to make me feel special, babe!” Finn calls from the kitchen, where he’s putting together the final touches on the snacks for their party.

“Maybe I was asking him about you!” Rose shouts, but then she pulls back and makes an adorable face as she shakes her head at Poe, mouthing, “No, I wasn’t!”

“I can hear you!”

Rose and Poe both laugh at Finn’s indignant claim, and then Poe takes Rose’s coat and hangs it up in the closet. “So, uh,” Poe closes the door to the closet and smiles at Rose nervously. “Where’s your roommate?”

He goes for nonchalant, and definitely fails judging by Rose’s knowing smirk. That’s what he gets for telling Finn anything, honestly. “She’ll be by in a few, she went to park in your guest spot.”

“Ah.” Poe fidgets with the sleeves of his sweater. “Cool, cool.”

“Weirdo.” Rose flounces into the kitchen, and he can hear the happy couple giggling and fussing at each other; Rose was right, he muses, he really is acting weird. Rose’s roommate is his other best friend - he’d met Rey Kenobi along with Finn Storm about three years ago, when they were fresh out of undergrad and joined The Resistance, a cybersecurity firm led by Leia Organa, Poe’s long-time mentor. Poe had been almost thirty when he met the two, but Rey and Finn had taken to him like adorable, millennial ducklings, and they’d never really considered their almost eight year age gap as an obstacle to their friendship.

But, Poe did consider it an obstacle to … other things. He straightened out the green velvet mat under the nativity set he’d inherited from his mother and spent a couple seconds tracing a pattern into the textured fabric, thinking about eight years, and hazel eyes, and smiles like sunsh-

A knock at the door stirs him from his reverie, and Poe hastens to open the door. On the other side is Rey Kenobi, clutching a brown-wrapped parcel in her mittened hands, and grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey, Sunshine.” He steps back to let her in, and Rey enters, tucking her hair behind her ear clumsily. He closes the door to keep the warm air in, and Rey shivers in the foyer. “You got some snow,” he laughs, reaching out unthinkingly to brush the collected flakes from her green coat. Poe looks up last second and catches Rey staring at him, her full bottom lip trapped between her teeth, and his heart might actually stop, just a little bit.

“Happy Christmas.” Rey’s voice startles him slightly, and he nods, stepping back, away from her personal space that he was definitely encroaching on.

“Yeah, yeah.” He clears his throat and when she turns around, he helps her out of her thick coat, trying not to let his hands linger at her shoulders as he pulls it free and goes to hang it up for her. He’s well aware that the back of his neck is flaming red by this point. “Merry Christmas.”

“Poe?” He turns around to look at her, and he regrets it immediately because - _God._ She’s so pretty it almost hurts to look at her. Rey Kenobi’s standing in his foyer, in a red dress, her long legs covered by dark green tights - and she’s wearing those ridiculous little heeled boots that he teases her for but also secretly likes - and it honestly hurts to look at her. She holds her parcel up (and he prays she hasn’t noticed his eyes lingering on her) and lifts an eyebrow. “Present?”

“Tree.” Poe points his finger vaguely towards the living room. “They go - tree.”

“Thanks.” She smiles at him shyly, no doubt in response to his awkward staring, and he’s still kicking himself when she turns the corner and vanishes from sight (and he forces himself to not watch her leave, the hem of her skirt an inch above her knees, a green ribbon tied around her waist, perfectly showcasing her figure). Poe clenches his fists and flails a little bit, waving his arms and kicking his feet, silently screaming at his performance.

“They go tree?” Poe freezes guilty and looks up at Finn, who’s returned from the kitchen and is leaning against the entry to the foyer, smirking evilly. “That was great, buddy! Way to go, totally normal.”

“Shut up.”

***

Poe eyes the pile of presents under the tree with a growing wariness. The exchange is about to start, and while it’s a long-standing tradition in their circle of friends (he and his buddies from college have been doing it for almost twelve years, and Finn and Rey and Rose have done it with them the last three), he’s never been this nervous.

It’s because of who his recipient is. Last year, he had Rose, and that was easy enough - he got her Movie Pass and two dozen large boxes of candy so she could take herself to the movies whenever she wanted. Two years ago, he’d had Snap, and he bought him a home-brewing kit (and a promise to be subjected to whatever weird craft beers Snap cooked up, after Kare announced she had no intention of being her husband’s guinea pig).

But this year, he has _Rey._ Rey Kenobi, Rey. Rey Kenobi, the girl who he was definitely sort of massively in love with, Rey.

He buries his face in his hands and huffs out a breath as everyone starts piling into the living room, holding plates of snacks they’d gotten from Finn’s large selection in the kitchen. Someone sidles up next to him, and he peeks out from his fingers to see the chef himself smirking at him.

“Why so nervous?”

“Ugh.” Poe pushes his hand down his face and wipes at his mouth, trying to shove the anxiety back down. “It’s about my Secret Santa person.” He fidgets, not wanting to ruin the surprise - Finn’s clever enough that if he _knows_ who Poe has (and knowing Finn, he’s also wrangled the truth out of more than a few of their friends), he’ll be able to figure out through a process of elimination who _he_ has, and Poe has a feeling that Jess would eat him alive if she found out Poe was even partly responsible for her gift being spoiled.

“I know.” Poe’s neck twinges from how fast he jerks his head to stare at Finn, who’s smirking at him smugly. “It’s gonna be a big year, huh?”

“What are you…” Poe trails off and then narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Oh, nothing.” Finn leans back on the couch and pretends to pull imaginary fluff off his ugly Christmas sweater. “I just maybe....manipulated the outcomes a little is all.”

“You _what_?” Poe stares at Finn in growing realization.

“Maybe I made you pick last, and at the last second, threw someone’s name in the hat, aka the slip of paper I’d hidden in my sleeve, aka the slip of paper containing the name of one beautiful, majestic, sparkling angel who you frequently pine over in an obnoxious way.”

“Finn Andrew Storm!” Poe hisses, aghast. He quickly looks around to see if anyone can over hear them, but Mariah Carey’s blasting from Kare’s bluetooth speakers, and most of the party is having a great time, including Ben Solo, who’s settled in front of the fireplace _next to Rey,_ and Poe can’t _focus on that_ because he has to _murder his best friend_. “You rigged the game?”

“Mhm.” Finn’s smirk doesn’t budge. “I think it’ll go very well.”

“Why?” Poe pokes Finn viciously in the leg when Finn starts to laugh. “Why, why, _why_ would you do that?!”

“Because.” Finn pops his feet up on the coffee table and looks utterly unapologetic. “One of us had to do something.”

“Oh my _God_ you are so _dead_ -” Poe’s interrupted in his threat by Rose standing in front of the tree and ringing a silver bell that looks like it was pulled off the Christmas Express.

“Welcome to the 2018 Annual Secret Santa!” Rose chirps, and she bends down to pick up the first present near her foot. “Let’s get this party started with - Iolo! And remember ladies and gents, no one gets to find out their Secret Santa until the reveal at-”

“The end of the night,” everyone choruses, well familiar with the ancient rule. Rose gives them a thumbs up and then bounces over to Iolo with his present.

The golden-eyed airline pilot rips open the package eagerly, and Poe misses what’s inside (it’s good enough to get some _oooo_ ’s from their friends) because he leans over to whisper-yell at Finn some more.

“I cannot believe you would do that! That you would interfere with the sacred oath -”

“Next up is Kare!”

“-of Secret Santa!”

“Buddy,” Finn mutters back to him, leaning forward to watch Kare open her bag with a big grin on her face. “I love you, but if you don’t stop going on about this, I’m going to fire you.”

“Fire me?” Poe splutters as Kare pulls out a hand-carved crossbow (which is honestly the last thing she needs). “You can’t fire me-”

“Yup, I’m gonna fire you. From being my roommate. Fired.”

“Ugh.” Poe shuts up for the time being, and the exchange keeps rolling. He forces himself to look more cheerful after Rey casts him a concerned glance from across the room, where Ben Solo’s leaning closer and closer to her, his lips constantly moving, his eyes constantly on Rey’s face, and God, why didn’t Poe sit next to her, again?

His turn comes and goes, and he really does love his new motorcycle gloves, which he desperately needs. Poe wears them good-naturedly through the next few rounds, but then there’s only one present left under the tree, a colorfully wrapped box with three letters on the tag - “Rey.”

His hands sweat terribly in the gloves as Rose hands the gift to Rey, and he pulls them off and tries to wipe his palms on the couch. He stares at the floor - everything about his gift screams _I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you,_ and it’s going to be game over at the end of the night when he has to stand up and tell _everyone_ that it’s his gift - until Finn rams him in the side to make him watch.

Rey’s beaming as she pulls the tape free and unwraps the gift, but her smile falters at what’s inside. _She hates it,_ Poe thinks wildly, wondering if it would be too much of a tell if he ran from the room or even jumped out the window into the snowy wonderland beyond, _she absolutely hates it, it was a terrible choice, and_ -

“What is it?” Snap asks, wiping eggnog from his beard.

Her hands slowly lift the box free from the paper, and she licks her bottom lip before answering. “It’s … it’s _The Lord of the Rings_.”

“The movies?” Ben squints down at what she’s holding, leaning back on his hands - one of which is right behind Rey, his arm practically brushing her back.

“No,” Rey snorts derisively, rolling her eyes (and that’s a soothing sight, Rey rolling her eyes at Ben Solo). “The _books_.” Poe’s doubt from the previous moment vanishes at the reverence in her voice.

He’d spent forever hunting down the correct edition - he’d gone for the Folio Society’s illustrated collection, which included the Silmarillion. Poe had been delighted to learn two years ago that Rey shared his love for the history of Middle Earth, and they’d had many spirited debates over the Second and Third Ages, over the benefits of Rohan or Gondor, over the fate of Beren and his love. Rey loves _The Lord of the Rings_ , and Poe loves Rey, and Poe is such a total idiot who fell into their best friend’s trap of revealing that love through a _three hundred dollar boxed set._

“They’re so beautiful,” Rey breathes, tracing the spines with an elegant finger.

“I thought there was a fifty dollar limit,” Ben grumbles, and Rose leans forward to smack him upside the head, his curls mussing automatically. He scowls at her, but Rose pats his head in a way that could be condescending or soothing, and he shrugs and smacks his lips.

Poe knows for a fact that Rey only owns a ragged set of her favorite books, ones she’d found in a thrift store in high school, tattered secondhand copies that had pages missing. Poe knows that Rey has sketchbooks full of her own illustrations of Tolkien’s fantasy world - sketches and drawings and paintings that Rey had shown him with a shy, secret smile on her face - and he knows that she can actually hold a conversation in Sindarin.

And, Poe knows that in about three hours, after they’ve watched _Home Alone_ and sang a bunch of carols, and the night winds to an end, that Rey Kenobi will have absolutely no reason to miss the obvious, glaring fact that he’s irrevocably in love with her.

Now that the gift-giving is over, they start to migrate into the other room, where Finn set up the projector and the screen for their chosen holiday film. Rey is the last to stand up (second to last, because Poe’s frozen to his seat in embarrassment), stroking her books with a thoughtful frown on her lovely face.

“You coming?” Ben Solo asks her from the doorway.

“Yeah.” Rey looks up briefly, her cheeks pink. She sees Poe still sitting, and then looks over at Ben, who’s holding a hand out to her. She waves her hand at him dismissively. “Sorry, Ben, just - give me a second, would you?”

“I’ll save you a seat.” He winks at her and vanishes into the movie room, and Poe feels sick to his stomach. Rey’s still there, and he could just confess now, fake an illness, and hide in his car or in the street or in the woods (or in another country) during the group’s reveal, but nothing comes out of his mouth when he opens it.

Instead, he shoves off from the couch and nearly runs to the door opposite to the one all their friends went through. He slips into his shoes and grabs his leather jacket in the foyer and then heads out the front door, his heart slamming in his throat. At least when he’s outside, he can pretend the tears pricking at his eyes are from the cold.

The snow crunches under his feet as he walks down the quiet street. The windows in the front of the rows of townhouses glow with a yellow softness; here and there multi-colored Christmas lights shine from porches and gutters, and the hush helps Poe grab onto a bit more calm than he’s able to manage on his own.

He stops at the end of the street, some five hundred feet from his own front door, under the grove of trees. Someone on the Homeowner’s Association had draped them with fairy lights, and they twinkle overhead mockingly as Poe’s panic continues to rip through him.

“Damn it,” he mutters, gripping his hair for a second. “Damn it, damn it, damn it-”

Behind him, there’s the sound of footsteps on the snow, and he pauses in his litany of cursing the universe and Finn Storm and his own self, waiting for the person to pass by, hoping that it’s just someone taking their dog for a walk, and not someone coming to see a person have a minor melt down.

“Poe?”

He knows that voice, and his heart resumes its panicked marathon in his throat while he turns around.

Rey Kenobi’s standing there, and unlike him, she hadn’t stopped to grab her jacket. At least she’s wearing shoes, but her cheeks are bright red to match her dress, and Poe curses once more before slipping off his jacket.

“You’re gonna freeze, Sunshine, here.” He drapes it around her shoulders and steps back as though being that close to her for a second longer would electrocute him (and maybe it would).

“Thanks.” Rey slips her arms through the sleeves and smiles at him, an odd, half-smile. “Why did you run away?”

_I’m a coward._

“I just needed some fresh air is all.” Poe shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stares over her shoulder for a second to collect himself. “I’ll be back in, don’t worry.”

“You know,” Rey clears her throat audibly, and he forces himself to look at her (even though it really does hurt). Her eyes sparkle under the lights of the trees, and while she’s not smiling, there’s some sort of glow to her face that makes him think that she looks _happy._ “I’ve never … never really told anyone how much I like Tolkien.”

“Oh?” Poe wonders at the effects of gravity because he’s hurtling downwards, judging by the way his stomach plummets. “Really?”

“Well, I’ve told one person.” Rey steps in a little closer, and Poe licks his bottom lip nervously to wet it. “You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You’re the only person who really got it, who actually could … I don’t know, match? How interested I was in it? You never made me feel weird or geeky for liking it, and you felt the same way I did about it. So, yeah, I know you were my Secret Santa.”

“Look, Rey, I didn’t want to make you-” Poe begins, but Rey lifts a hand, and he immediately shuts up.

“I love it. It was perfect.” She’s smiling again, and Poe tries not to focus on how she looks right now, tries not to focus on how much bigger his shoulders must be than hers, because she’s swimming in that damn jacket. Poe’s wondering how he’s ever going to get over the fact that his collar’s going to smell like her for a few days when she makes his heart stop.

“And I guess it makes sense because you’re perfect.” Rey reaches out slowly and wraps her fingers around his hand, and they’re ice cold, but it doesn’t stop the flush of warm down his spine. “And I love you.”

Poe stares at her in shock, and Rey fidgets uncomfortably. “Christmas is supposed to be the time where you’re honest and tell people how you feel about them, so that’s what I’m doing. I love you. And not like I love Finn, or Rose. I love you a whole lot, and if your present is any indication, you at least care about me, so you won’t make fun of me for loving -”

“I love you too,” Poe blurts out before he can stop himself. “God, I” - he laughs, almost hysterically - “Of course I love you. Like, more than should be possible.” He tugs her closer by their linked hands and then wraps an arm around her back to pull her in even more. Rey’s hand slips around his back as well, and they sway together under the lit trees. “I’ve been in love with you for so long now, and - and I’m not entirely sure this isn’t a dream.”

“It’s not a dream.” Rey smiles at him, just as heartbreakingly lovely as usual. “It’s Christmas.”

His eyes flicker to her lips, unable to stop himself, but Rey nods shyly, and they close the distance together. Rey’s mouth is warm, even as her nose is cold when it brushes over his cheek, and Poe doesn’t ever want this moment to end.

(And, as the snow starts to fall quietly around them, Poe thinks that maybe he won’t have to seek revenge against Finn after all).

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you're still having fun with this! Happy Day Two Of Damerey December! :)
> 
> Here's the boxed set that Poe got Rey (if you were curious)
> 
> https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-j-r-r-tolkien-collection.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAoo7gBRDuARIsANeJKUaASqwS4r9inS4SLI1b6Ad6GU2FYapErvKZz9aQQy08h9JoR2-hmfAaAjfLEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds


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